Chicago nonprofit investigated for questionable spending

Annie B. Jones Community Services is a nonprofit in Chicago being investigated for its finances. It uses public funds to care for disadvantaged youths and adults. (Jose M. Osorio, Chicago Tribune)

A Chicago nonprofit that has received millions of public dollars to provide foster care and other social services is being investigated by state officials for using taxpayer funds to pay for its founder's condo, car and other personal expenses, the Tribune has learned.

State funds also were used to subsidize the former nonprofit leader's expenses related to riverboat casino ATM withdrawals, parking tickets, prescription medication and spa services, according to state officials and records.

Vivian R. Jones founded a South Shore nonprofit in her mother's name two decades ago. Programs offered through Annie B. Jones Community Services grew to include foster care, addiction treatment, job training, teen programs and temporary assistance for the needy.

The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has awarded repeated contracts to ABJ since 1998, records show. The nonprofit has received more than $10 million from DCFS and four other agencies just since 2010, according to state comptroller officials, with most of the money coming from DCFS.

DCFS continued to financially support the nonprofit despite long-standing concerns about its management practices, finances, "bounced checks" and a warning a decade ago that it should cut ties, the newspaper found. The nonprofit stands to receive another nearly $1 million in taxpayer moneythis fiscal year from other public sources.

The apparent lack of oversight has drawn fire from DCFS Inspector General Denise Kane.

"While the private agency was to blame for excessive mismanagement of public funds, (DCFS) stood by for nearly a decade noting the agency's substantial deficit, lack of board oversight, failure to timely prove requested documentation and failure to comply with prior audit findings," Kane wrote in a recent stinging report.

Jones voluntarily gave up her latest DCFS contract last May as the agency probed deeper into a January 2013 audit of her spending, officials said.

The nonprofit's political ties are evident in photographs on its website and Facebook page. Jones is shown in undated photos with state and national dignitaries, including a young Barack Obama, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and former Illinois Senate President Emil Jones.

The ABJ founder was even honored by the Chicago City Council, which in June 2012 approved an honorary street name for her — "Dr. Vivian R. Jones Way," near the nonprofit's offices at 1818 E. 71st St.

Jones donated nearly $14,000 to the political campaigns of various city, state and national Democrats, according to campaign disclosure records. The last donation was made in 2009 —$250 to the Senate Democratic Victory Fund.Though most were made by her personally, $4,600 came directly from ABJ funds, records show. Internal Revenue Service rules forbid political donations from such tax-exempt organizations.

Jones, 65, has not been charged with wrongdoing. She would not comment on the allegations, but her attorney, Lewis Myers Jr., said in a written statement that his client did not violate any laws or guidelines.

"Over the past months, Dr. Jones and ABJ have fully cooperated with DCFS in their investigation of the ABJ agency. Both Dr. Jones and the agency have disclosed all of the information and documents that DCFS requested to review. We are confident that Dr. Jones has not violated any DCFS guidelines or violated the law in any way in her administration of the ABJ grant funds and in her management of the ABJ agency," Myers said.

Jones' daughter, Victoria Brady, said she now serves as ABJ's executive director and that her mother is no longer an employee.

The nonprofit celebrated the opening of a privately funded new media lab during an event Monday that Brady said marked ABJ's 21st anniversary.

"It's a long legacy," she said.

'Worsening financial condition'

The nonprofit's main government support came from DCFS to recruit foster parents, license their homes and handle monthly state payments. Despite its many government contracts, a review of the nonprofit's public financial filings shows ABJ has long operated at a deficit, which one year ago grew to nearly $786,000.

Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris represents state wards, many of whom are in foster care. Some of the children's caretakers whose cases are managed by ABJ have complained about bounced checks, he said.

"It happened enough times that it caused us concern," said Harris. "It puts at-risk children's placements in peril."

Sonia Butler-Jones said she has raised 28 children — from newborns to teens — in her Chicago home since becoming a foster mother in 1997. Records reviewed by the newspaper show nearly half a dozen of Butler-Jones' monthly checks from ABJ have bounced.